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HITCHHIKING TO SWITZERLAND

So you just graduated? What are you going to do now? Will you find a job and settle down?

That’s what everyone keeps on asking me at the moment… To be honest, I don’t know yet what I’m going to do and certainly am not planning to settle down yet but that’s okay. In fact it’s even great. For the first time in my life I’m totally free and don’t have any obligations. Right now it’s the perfect moment in time to travel the world and just live. Well, there’s something I probably forgot to mention. With “totally free” I don’t mean financially free, unfortunately. Therefore, before I can book a flight ticket to somewhere far away, I need to work and save some money first. Since I already spent the whole summer back home in Germany, it seemed more appealing to me to work somewhere else. Some time ago a good friend of mine told me that he just moved to Switzerland to work for some months before he will go to New Zealand. Since I’ve never been to our neighbouring country before and there certainly are many beautiful places to discover, I came to the conclusion to also take my chance to find a job in Switzerland for some weeks or months. Together with Tim and Michi, two good friends of mine who studied together with me in the Netherlands, I decided to hitchhike there and see if we can find some work.

Let the adventure begin…

On Saturday, Michi hit the road in Hamburg and stayed one night at Tim’s place close to Düsseldorf. We planned on meeting Sunday morning/ noon at a gas station at the autobahn close to Koblenz to make our way down to Switzerland. But of course the boys couldn’t resist to go to an “Indian 80’s party” the night before and therefore arrived with a hangover slightly delayed at 3pm. Soon after we started approaching cars at the gas station and parking area, it was raining cats and dogs so that we had to look for shelter. But we were lucky, about one hour later we found two Italian guys who gave us a lift to Laundau in der Pfalz. Even though the three of us plus our three big backpacks had to squeeze on the back seat, we didn’t really understand what they were saying and we had a flat tire, it was a good ride. Since it was already quite late and we knew we wouldn’t make it all the way to our final destination anyway, we decided to camp on a field behind the motorway station. After we had put our tents down, we spent the evening listening to good music, drinking and sharing travel stories from the past months.

Four more rides to Winikon

The next morning, as we sat down with all our luggage and a sign, a Czech guy approached us and offered us a lift. At the next gas station we were also lucky and quickly found a young German guy who dropped us off behind Basel. From there, a Turkish guy, living in Switzerland for twenty years, gave us a lift into the direction of Luzern. From where he dropped us off, it was only 6km to our final destination: Winikon, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

This time it was more difficult to get a lift since we couldn’t directly approach people while they were sitting in their cars but instead had to stand next to the street and rely on our thumb and sign. But again we were lucky, a Swiss guy driving in the opposite direction, saw us, turned around and drove us right in front of our accommodation where we will spend the next nights. My friend is already living there since a while and recommended it to us. It’s a charming old farmhouse with apple trees, horses and chicken admidst impressive green mountains. That’s it for now, I’ll keep you updated…

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About author

I’m Jacky, a 27-year old globetrotter from Germany. However, I usually can be found almost anywhere but in my country of birth. Until not long ago I was on an important mission in Australia to chase the sun, adventures, good chats, unforgettable moments and the beauty of this world.Moreover, I’m a hippie at heart, recently did my yoga teacher training in India and just love to bury my nose in a good book.
I’m mostly exploring countries on a low budget and often can be found with a colourful sign and a big smile in my face on the side of the road, trying to hitchhike from A to B.Read more

1 comment

[…] Most days in summer were troubled with writing my bachelor thesis which felt like a neverending story to me. Only a few days after I’ve passed this freaking thesis as the last part of my four-year-long studies, I was desperate for another adventure. And so were my classmates and good friends Michi and Tim. Since we all were on a very tight budget, we decided to hitchhike to Switzerland to earn some money and realise our travel plans in 2015. It was a real adventure to hitchhike more than 500km with three people and a lot of luggage but after one day we arrived at our desired destination. If you want to know how we did it, just have a look at the following post: Hitchhiking to Switzerland. […]